It’s fun to listen to such music when working on photographs. I click many in a wedding and it’s take quite some time and energy to go through each one of them, shortlisting the ones that are worth the clients to look at.

I have been pretty distracted from all other work, ever since the urge to understand and share the story of modern Indian political history took over. It’s been about two weeks now. And I have read a lot, and written a lot and encouraged few more to join me in a newfound effort to create a Youtube series that makes it very easy for anyone (from maids to drivers to sixteen year old kids) to understand how we got independence. Instead of talking more about it, let me just share the work that has already been done below (the slides will keep on changing, depending upon when you read this post; if you don’t find the sides at all, leave a comment and I will try to link up the latest content).

There is a story as to how this project started, but that’s for another blog, another time. Vatsap? Let me make some coffee and go back to working on my pictures. Today is a deadline as the couple eagerly awaits their wedding story from my lens. They are going to love it! 🙂

The year is about to end. 2018. Bad year for this blog. Didn’t do much here. And yet, can’t let go of Vatsap.com. Can’t let go off this blog. There is something about writing that even when I don’t write at all for months, I know there is a space for it in my life.

These days when I am shooting a wedding, I wonder what I am doing there. There has to be better use of my time, than trying to do photography. The scope of this photography is very limited. Yes, it’s art, but why is it necessary? And more importantly, why do I need to spend time on dong it again and again. If this sounds like I am bored, that’s not necessarily true. I am always charged up in every wedding that I shoot. I am never in a ‘comfort zone’ as such. I just think, there are better things I should be dong – from a ‘scope’ point of view. But the thing is, I already do that too. Except that, the ‘bigger scope’ things are not necessarily money making. And thus, wedding photography has essentially become a need to sustain the other things that definitely bring me more joy. Telling stories. Powerful stories. Impactful stories. And yet, I didn’t do a great job at telling powerful stories this year. I made a few, and shot a few. But majority of my short documentary work was commissioned assignments, where I was paid and hired to create work.

Do I sound like complaining? I didn’t intend to, when I started writing. I just intended to note down my thoughts which are what they are. What else is the use of this blog now, other than to note down my thoughts. And thoughts are not so much in our control. Sometimes, they might sound complaining. But rationally speaking, I have already been working on plans to make my life align more to what brings me more joy. My joy is linked to working on stuff that has a bigger outreach, a bigger scope.

I invested considerable time and money for second half of this year, to churn up more content for my Youtube channel, primarily with the objective of gaining more subscribers. The subscription count stands at 14,000 today. It was around 300 just two years ago. I had wanted to achieve 1 lakh this year, but it is what it is. Let’s see how the year ends. Lot of wedding work this month (that will carry on for most of December) and the remaining time filled with commissioned 3MSes, little time left to do anything else. But there is always time, if I think about it. I can’t say I have been the most efficient. Over work often takes a toll, and then follows several days of inefficiency. I have always been a victim of that mode of working. That’s just me.

In Dec last year, I attended the tenth year reunion at IIT. Technically it will be this year that I will be completing my ten years since graduation but for majority of my IIT friends, that happened to be 2017. No, no, I didn’t flunk a year or anything like that. It’s just that majority of my friends did their B.Tech so they could graduate in 4 years while I and a small fraction of populace at IIT were Dual Degree students (you get both B.Tech & M.Tech) and had to study for five years.

IIT Madras, Dec 2017.

I didn’t vlog during the reunion but did make something few weeks before that when I was in Chennai and took a super short trip to campus with Misre.

For some reason, ended up visiting Chennai quite a few time last year. Talking about last year, though things seemed to be going out of hand, money-wise by the middle of the year, they got sorted out eventually by God’s grace. I bagged quite a few 3minuteStories projects, that I am still working on! So life has been great and I am super grateful and all that.

It is difficult to write new relevant posts here on Vatsap (phres shit no more? ). The world has transformed. People consume content on instagram, facebook and Youtube. But it’s difficult to let go off my first blog-site! 🙂 So vatsap.com shall continue to exist! For nostalgia’s sake! 🙂

It’s kind of hot and humid and sweaty at five thirty in the morning. Got up early just like that, mainly because I slept off early. I am sitting here at the Dona Paula house in Goa. The fan is making a tak tak sound. Actually, let me go put the AC on, and come back to write.

** Goes and switches the AC on **

The financial scene got so bad last month that I started looking for jobs. But then I got some work eventually and had enough to pay for rent and eat. Times like these one must go through, I guess. I was lucky to never face a situation like this before. But surviving such tough days is probably the only way to go ahead! I hope so! If it were easy to be on your own and chase what you truly wanted to do, and succeed at it, everyone would be doing it! 🙂 You have to be crazy enough to take risks that can kill you. And it’s okay to die in the process. To me, what’s not okay is to give up. But all it takes is “no money” to almost give up. The mind goes crazy. Some nights, you want to just go drown in the sea and let it all end. On other nights, you tell yourself “all is well”. Talking about your problem with other entrepreneurs / freelancers helps. When you do that, they tell you they went through that “no money” phase at one point or another. They survived. And that kind of conversation makes you feel normal.

Someone from insti looped me in few conversations that revolved around donating money to insti. And suddenly you notice all these guys from your very own college, doing high profile jobs across the globe, making money and all that – thinking about donating! Millions of dollars! You on the other side, are figuring out how to make just enough to pay your bloody rent! It makes you wonder if what you have put yourself through by chucking a set career, is even worth it! I want to make more money than any of these guys. But I don’t want to do that by doing things that one does just to make money. I want to get super rich by doing things that I truly care about! And I know I will get there. It’s the journey that’s frustrating and stressful and sometimes tests your inner grit. As long as the journey doesn’t kill me, it’s fine though.

When was the last time you saw an Indian (non-vulgar) movie where a young dude says this to a lady in her mid fifties, and you absolutely relate to the scene? I never had, and for that reason, yes Lipstick under my burkha (LIMB) must be applauded. In fact, it had the potential to be an amazing movie. Unfortunately, it is not.

I could see how someone had a great idea for great characters – the kind that we hardly see in Bollywood movies. And then someone wrote stories around these characters. But, that’s where the problem occurred. The writing remained mediocre. Most stories for most part, were boring.

LUMB is about the journey of four protagonists.

You see all of them together in the beginning of the movie when one of them (waxingvali) is getting engaged. And then you see them together again in the end, when another protagonist (Buaji) is being thrown out of her house.

SPOILER ALERT from this point onward.

Buaji’s journey

Buaji’s story was great. It was the only good and interesting story out of all four. Ratna Pathak is a good actor in general (and she was good in this movie too), but she looked too posh to be an old Bhopali aunty. I totally loved the swimming trainer though. That dude did an amazing job and fit the role 100%.

The second oldest protagonist – Shireen – was played by Konkona and her story was pretty boring.

Shireen’s journey

I like the intention of showing that there are these assholish men who remain asshole always – even when they clearly are losers. But where’s the story? What is the beginning and what is the end? Nothing. Throughout the movie, Shireen just kept trying to ‘adjust’ to accommodate her husband’s assholishness. That’s a very very flat storyline for a 2 hour movie. With the same characters in the same scenario, a good writer could have written scenes that were engaging too.

In fact, this lack of engaging storyline applies not just to Shireen but to all the three protagonists, save Buaji.

Waxingvali’s journey

The guy who plays the photographer is a great actor in general, but in this movie, he just didn’t fit the role. He always seemed to be overacting. Or may be I know exactly how a small town studio photographer walks and talks, so that’s why I found the acting very fake. 🙂 The ‘better guy’ was really really fun to watch though. In fact, it was his presence that added some spark to this otherwise very ordinary, nothing exciting about it story-line.

And last but not the least, the most boring of all the stories was that of a college-girl (acted brilliantly though).

The college girl’s journey

Overall, other than lack of great storytelling, I think the use of four protagonists was a little too much! For the first 15 to 20 mintues, it looked like there were ten different stories unfolding and that kind of gave me a headache. And became very boring to watch, because there was not enough time to feel for any character. Yes, there have been movies made with even more protagonists (‘Love Actually’ for example, that also inspired a similar template Bollywood movie – Life in a Metro) each having their own stories. But something worked for those movies that doesn’t work for LUMB. They could have probably chosen two, like Masaan and spent more time developing a great story for those two.

So yeah, that’s about it. Should you go and watch this movie? Sure, watch it. Especially, if you are woman. Watch it for the intention behind making this movie. And try to ignore the lack of effort in writing engaging stories. On that note, want to share what a friend thought about the movie! That might explain why this movie still works, in spite of poor stories.